Launchpad Revenue Slows Down Amid Retail Exhaustion Hunter Biden's Memecoin Tests Liquidity (Do not buy!!!!) Launchpad Revenue Slows Down Amid Retail Exhaustion Sep 8 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . GM Investors As risk markets begin to price in a chaotic autumn, we are watching political memecoins attempt to absorb the last drops of retail liquidity. Our desk is seeing a stark divergence between these fleeting on-chain casinos and a rapidly hardening macroeconomic backdrop. The upcoming launch of Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP token perfectly captures this tension. It is a spectacle of peak grift arriving just as global bond yields are crushing risk assets. While retail traders chase politically charged tickers, institutional capital is pivoting toward hard commodities and defensive positioning. We are tracking intense selloffs across major tech indexes as global supply chain fears resurface. Volatility is guaranteed over the coming weeks as inflation data and central bank decisions collide with exhausted market structure. This is not the environment to blindly punt capital into low-conviction setups. TOKEN2049 Singapore: Find the Next Hyperliquid Before It Lists!!! Every year, one conference produces the startups that dominate the next cycle. This year, it’s TOKEN2049 Singapore. TOKEN2049 Origins Hackathon: 36 hours, $100K prize pool, direct demo access to the main stage. This is where the next cycle’s infrastructure gets built live. 500 applicants, 10 finalists, 1 global stage. Past cohorts have gone on to become Web3 unicorns. 25,000 people. 7,000 companies. 60%+ C-suite. 160+ countries. One building: Marina Bay Sands. Newsletter readers get 10% off tickets. We don’t get a kickback. We just want our people in that room. Claim your 10% discount and register Political Grift Meets Crypto Market Analysis The upcoming September 9 launch of the $LAPTOP token on Base feels like a simulation breaking down. Hunter Biden is launching a memecoin with a massive 1 billion supply. The token is currently sporting a $200 million fully diluted valuation on Polymarket. Our research indicates that 35% of the supply unlocks immediately at the token generation event. This initial unlock includes a 10% airdrop to his Substack and Channel 5 subscribers. The tokenomics introduce a novel but highly controversial prediction market mechanism. Exactly 30% of the supply is tied directly to real-world prediction resolutions. If a prediction comes true, those tokens are permanently burned from the supply. If the prediction fails, the tokens are donated to charity via the Phoenix Veritas Foundation. This structure essentially attempts to gamify his personal controversies for on-chain profit. Despite the gimmicks, the market is aggressively pushing back against the launch. Kraken has already deleted its listing post following swift public backlash. Pump also scrubbed its promotional tweet from its main timeline. High-profile figures like Ansem and Market Bubble abruptly canceled their upcoming interviews with Hunter. Even Base creator Jesse Pollak publicly distanced the network from the project. He emphasized that Base made a conscious decision to remain completely hands-off regarding amplification. The sheer hypocrisy of the launch is impossible to ignore. Hunter Biden recently attacked Donald Trump’s $2.3 billion crypto haul, yet he is now launching his own token. He is reportedly attempting to service $15 million in personal debt after accumulating $17 million in legal fees. Regardless of the moral hazard, Base network infrastructure is capturing the speculative volume. Aerodrome popped nearly 25% on the news as traders front-ran the anticipated decentralized exchange activity. Our desk views this token as a massive red flag for late-stage retail exhaustion. Macro Trading Under Fire: Fed Policy and Geopolitical Risk While the on-chain trenches chase political absurdity, the global economy is signaling severe distress. Our desk is aggressively monitoring a massive derisking schedule over the next two weeks. The market is stacked with massive volatility catalysts that could determine the next major directional move. Traders are forced to reprice the market’s most ambitious infrastructure and artificial intelligence bets. The geopolitical risk premium is currently soaring due to renewed tensions in the Middle East. Oil prices have surged to a three-month high above $98 per barrel for Brent crude. Meanwhile, copper just registered a new all-time high, signaling underlying industrial panic. We are tracking the following critical derisking events for the days ahead: Producer Price Index data releases on Thursday, setting the immediate inflation baseline. Consumer Price Index data follows on Friday, acting as the ultimate macro volatility trigger. The CLARITY Act vote is scheduled for September 15, though passage chances appear near zero. The critical Fed policy decision arrives September 16, with rate hike odds currently hovering around 60%. Patience matters immensely when macroeconomic uncertainty reaches these extreme historical levels. We would rather react to explicit data confirmation than force a leveraged trade based on a guess. Chasing price action into a major central bank decision is a recipe for disaster. Let the central bank mechanics and political headlines reveal the true market direction. Bitcoin at the Brink as On-Chain Data Shifts to Equities Bitcoin is currently testing a crucial inflection zone that demands strict risk management. We are watching Bitcoin retest the key daily RSI trendline that broke its long-term downtrend following a sharp 26% rally. The technical structure suggests imminent volatility, yet major resistance looms overhead. Historical precedent warns that peak cultural grift routinely marks local exhaustion for the market. Past cycles show celebrity

Oil flirting with $100 and stocks selling off. 🚨5 Smart Plays Between $100 Oil and the Inflation Trap Oil flirting with $100 and stocks selling off. Sep 8 READ IN APP None of this is financial advice. Do your own research. By reading this newsletter, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions outlined in our disclaimer . Hey Traders, Overnight the U.S. and Iran kept trading blows around the Gulf, with tanker strikes, slower Hormuz traffic, and Houthi hits on Saudi energy sites pushing crude back toward the psychologically important $100 area. Wall Street was open again after the holiday and sold the open, stocks drifted lower as oil stayed bid and rate-hike odds held after last week’s hot jobs print. The live story is no longer a closed-market Asia tape. It is an energy shock sitting on top of Friday’s CPI and the mid-month Fed decision. Equities are treating $100 oil as an inflation problem, not a growth boom. Bitcoin is trading with that same risk tape, not against it. Sticky inflation plus a Hormuz premium is still the tax on duration and risk assets. That tax showed up first in crude, then in stocks and crypto. Here is what we are watching. Poll of the Day ( Presented by Rain Trade ) 🎯 POLL How does Bitcoin resolve its daily RSI retest ahead of CPI and the Fed? 🟢 Bullish breakout rally 🔴 Rejection / cycle top 🦀 Chop until FOMC Today’s Charts: Chart #1 – Curve DAO(CRVUSDT) 1-Day Chart #2 – VVV(VVVUSDT) 1-Day Chart #3 – VeChain(VETUSDT) 1-Day Chart #4 – Flare(FLRUSDT) 1-Day Chart #5 – Dell Technologies (DELL) 1-Day Stop Trading Headlines. Start Trading Alpha. The desk that moves before the market does • Live community of traders who actually execute, not just talk • Real-time calls dropped while the candle is forming, not after it closes • 4.9/5 rating by 1000+ traders because signal beats noise, every single time Join 247 Research. Get the 24/7 terminal free. 50% off your first month, USE CODE: terminal ($100 off) Chart #1 – Curve DAO(CRVUSDT) 1-Day( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Curve DAO Token (CRV) has met strong supply after testing the $0.3900–$0.4000 resistance zone, printing a sharp bearish rejection candle back below the local shelf to trade around $0.3582 on the 1-day timeframe. Functioning as the governance and liquidity-incentive token for Curve Finance—a premier decentralized exchange protocol optimized for high-efficiency, low-slippage stablecoin and pegged-asset trading alongside its crvUSD collateralized debt engine—this short trade setup targets an extended mean-reversion drop toward the $0.2650–$0.2800 liquidity basin as long as overhead resistance holds below $0.3680–$0.4050. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.364 Stop Loss: $0.409 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.923 TP2: $0.264 Powerful narratives create powerful moves. With 247 Research , you get the insights to be early to the biggest trends in crypto. Chart #2 – VVV(VVVUSDT) 1-Day( Powered by Rain Trade ) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) VVV has completed a multi-week consolidation base and printed a bullish continuation candle, breaking above the $18.146 horizontal pivot to trade around $19.187 on the daily timeframe. Serving as the governance and incentive engine for high-throughput decentralized exchange infrastructure and automated market making liquidity pools, this long trade setup targets an upward expansion toward the $23.948 overhead resistance target as long as the $16.006–$18.146 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $18 Stop Loss: $16 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $21 TP2: $24 Chart #3 – VeChain(VETUSDT) 1-Day( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) VeChain has confirmed a bullish continuation following a sharp retest of its local breakout shelf, printing an expansive daily impulse candle to reclaim the $0.006740 level and trade around $0.007644 on the 1-day timeframe. Functioning as an enterprise-grade smart contract platform engineered for supply chain traceability, IoT data integration, and sustainability/carbon management via its dual-token model, this long trade setup targets an upward expansion toward the $0.008582 overhead resistance target as long as the $0.006198–$0.006740 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.0067 Stop Loss: $0.0061 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.0075 TP2: $0.0085 Chart #4 – Flare(FLRUSDT) 1-Day( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) Flare has completed a multi-session pullback toward its previous breakout base, defending the horizontal pivot near $0.006376 to trade around $0.006529 on the daily timeframe. Functioning as an EVM-compatible Layer-1 data blockchain delivering decentralized, high-integrity oracles and cross-chain state connectivity via its native FTSO and State Connector protocols, this long trade setup targets an upward re-expansion toward the $0.008130 overhead resistance target as long as the $0.005971–$0.006376 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $0.0063 Stop Loss: $0.0059 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $0.0073 TP2: $0.0081 Markets go both ways. Get premium short setups delivered every day with 247 Research . Chart #5 – Dell Technologies (DELL) 1-Day( Powered by Rain Trade 📊) Chartist: Kapoor (For the chart screenshot, ) (DELL refers to the stock of Dell Technologies Inc. and not a cryptocurrency.) Dell has executed a decisive multi-candle impulse breakout from its multi-month ascending consolidation structure, clearing the previous high pivot at $474.74 to trade around $524.00 on the daily timeframe. Driven by strong enterprise AI server demand (PowerEdge XE clusters), high-density data center infrastructure deployments, and an expanding commercial PC refresh cycle, this long trade setup targets an upward expansion toward the $676.84 overhead target as long as the $416.22–$474.74 support base holds. Trade Levels: Entry: $476 Stop Loss: $416 Take Profit Levels (TP): TP1: $550 TP2: $676 Banter’s Take The Hormuz premium has stopp

Gas prices hit a record high for Labor Day... September 08, 2026 Presented By Morning. Returning to work after Labor Day always hits like a ton of bricks. But as T.S. Eliot said, “The darkness (realizing that summer is essentially over) declares the glory of the light (a four-day week).” —Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Brendan Cosgrove, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into: Record-high Labor Day gas prices The secret Elizabeth Holmes documentary Why everyone’s going on “fallcations” Markets: Year-to-Date Nasdaq 26,506.99 +14.05% S&P 7,718.6 +12.75% Dow 53,414.25 +11.13% 10-Year 4.784% +62.1 bps Bitcoin $79,337.06 -9.34% GameStop $19.16 -4.58% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 10:00am ET. Here's what these numbers mean. Markets: Between US–Canada trade tensions and interest rate speculation, there will be enough action on Wall Street this week to make it feel like the three-day weekend never happened. Stock spotlight: OG meme stock GameStop reports earnings today, but a lot of the attention will be on one of the company’s side quests: its $4b+ stake in eBay. PUMP IT UP Labor Day gas prices have never been this high Spencer Platt/Getty Images Credit cards were working overtime at gas stations across the US this weekend. Pump prices for this time of year hit their highest level on record over the holiday, driven by continued oil disruptions from the Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine war. Gas cost an average of $4.15 per gallon yesterday, according to AAA: Gas never surpassed $4/gallon on Labor Day before this year. The previous record for the holiday was $3.82/gallon, set in 2012 (the record is $5.02/gallon in June 2022). The new record is ~30% higher than gas prices were this time last year, on average. For context, gas prices tend to move seasonally—rising through spring and summer, beginning their descent by Labor Day, and hitting their lowest lows in the winter, when days are shorter and people tend to drive less. This year is an exception: Iran has constrained tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz since the war started in February, while Ukrainian drone attacks have disabled some Russian refineries. US gas inventories were 6% below average for the last full week of August, according to the US Energy Information Administration. You’re still feeling the effects, even if you don’t have a car According to AAA: Diesel (fuel for freight trucks that carry everything from food to clothing) spiked almost 60% from last Labor Day weekend to hit a record high of $5.85/gallon going into the holiday. Prices for domestic flights to 10 of the most popular US destinations were up ~20% this weekend compared with last year. Looking ahead… the EPA moved up the date when refineries can switch from summer gas blends to cheaper winter blends from Sept. 15 to Sept. 1, which may provide some relief at the pump. But the broader oil outlook is uncertain: Iran plans to expand its Strait lockdown in response to new US strikes, and US refineries are already working at near-total capacity. —ML Sponsored By Roku Ads Manager A steady stream of sales Streaming now accounts for 47.5% of all TV viewership in the US, according to Nielsen, officially overtaking broadcast and cable combined. So if you’re not advertising on streaming, you’re missing out. Thankfully, brands can launch a Roku Ads Manager campaign starting at $500 using existing social video and creative assets. And thanks to their recent partnership with Spaceback, a creative AI upscaler, you can now turn existing social content into TV-ready ads. Roku reaches 125 million daily active people in the US , and its audience mirrors the broader US population almost exactly across ages, income, geography, and household type. Plus, Nielsen’s marketing mix modeling found that CTV is 4.5x more effective than social and 3.7x more effective than linear TV at driving sales. Get your brand in front of streamers . World Tour de headlines Chandan Khanna/Getty Images 🛬 NTSB is investigating the fatal Amazon cargo plane crash. The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into the cause of Sunday’s incident , in which an Amazon cargo jet overshot a runway at Miami International Airport and barreled into vehicles, killing five people. Per the Associated Press, the investigation is focusing on whether the plane touched down too late upon landing. The Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA says have saved hundreds of lives by stopping planes that overshoot the runway. Instead, the airport has a 1,000-foot safety buffer on each of its runways. 🇩🇪 Far-right AfD party wins state election in Germany. Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won a landslide victory in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, giving it the chance to form the country’s first far-right state government since the Nazi era , the Associated Press reported. It’s unclear if AfD would receive the support necessary from other parties in order to govern in the state, as Germany’s mainstream political parties have historically put up a firewall to keep it from taking power. The country’s intelligence agency classifies the nationalist, anti-immigrant AfD as an extremist group in some regions, though it’s increasingly gained popularity in Germany and has been embraced by figures like Elon Musk. 🗺️ Trump appeared to suggest renaming New Mexico to “New America.” On Sunday, President Trump posted a map of New Mexico on social media with the word “Mexico” crossed out and replaced with “America.” The official White House account on X also reshared the image. Trump’s post came days after signing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” prompting Google and Apple to relabel the lake straddling the US–Canada border to the president’s preferred name for US users. But Trump does not have legal authority to change the name of a state. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was quick to reject the sugg

Plus: Blood is thicker than water, just not when it comes to business. September 8, 2026 PRESENTED BY Good morning. Stop copying me. For creatives and thought leaders, social media can be frustrating. People can copy and paste someone else’s work onto their own feeds with few consequences. Well, Morgan Stanley has had enough. The investment bank has filed copyright complaints over at least 16 posts on X that contained screenshots of its charts and research, Bloomberg reported last week. The complaints appear to be working, with at least two accounts temporarily locked. But not all the posts seem to have been made in bad faith. Some users cited Morgan Stanley directly and praised its research. One user said he was confused why the bank didn’t simply ask him to remove the post before filing a complaint. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — except on Wall Street, apparently. INDUSTRY NEWS More Women are CFPs. Why Hasn’t Representation Budged? Photo by Getty Images via Unsplash Like punk band Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna says: Girls to the front . Many Wall Street jobs have traditionally been male-dominated, and financial advice is no exception. Just under a quarter of certified financial planners are women, a figure that has remained remarkably flat since the early 1990s , according to CFP Board data. More women are becoming CFPs each year, but men are entering the profession at nearly the same pace. The gender makeup looks much the same today as it did when the Riot Grrrl movement started. “Getting from roughly a quarter to half the profession isn’t something you achieve by recruiting more women into a system that hasn’t changed,” said Kathryn Berkenpas, chief operating officer at the CFP Board. “A lot of attrition happens mid-career, often tied to firm culture, compensation transparency and access to sponsorship or book-of-business transfer opportunities, not a lack of interest.” We Don’t Wanna Assimilate Much of the profession’s gender gap comes down to a lack of awareness, said Cary Carbonaro, an advisor at Ashton Thomas Private Wealth. “A lot of women think it’s a 100% sales, eat-what-you-kill job, but that’s just one career path,” she told Advisor Upside. “That’s the hardest track and turns a lot of women off from the profession, but there’s a million other roles in financial planning where you don’t have to hunt and get clients.” The industry’s cutthroat mentality and gregarious stereotypes initially discouraged Korinne Sugasawara, founder of Kite & Compass Financial. “As an introverted queer woman of color, I just never saw myself reflected in this field,” she said. The profession’s language can also be off-putting, she added, noting that financial planning should be rooted in mutual trust rather than “chasing down” clients. We Wanna Make It Easier. To help bring more women into the profession, the CFP Board and Carbonaro announced a scholarship last week: Carbonaro’s $125,000 donation will award $5,000 per student seeking to complete a CFP program, which would qualify the student to sit for the CFP exam. The scholarship is specifically designed for women career changers. Carbonaro herself first worked in marketing and product development on Wall Street before transitioning to a fiduciary role. “Women aren’t simply a demographic the profession needs to recruit, they’re an increasingly important client base,” said Francheska Ruiz, a CFP with Tobias Financial Advisors. “It’s becoming even more important for the profession to better reflect the people it serves.” Written by Griffin Kelly PRESENTED BY HARTFORD FUNDS Seeing What Others May Miss in Fixed Income Photo via Hartford Funds Navigating today’s volatile bond markets takes more insight, resources and expertise. Hartford Strategic Income ETF (HFSI) is an active fixed-income ETF built with the strength of Wellington Management, one of the largest active fixed-income managers in the world, overseeing more than $570 billion in fixed-income assets (as of 12/31/25). That scale gives HFSI access to perspectives across asset classes and geographies, drawing on insight from more than 280 investment professionals around the globe. The result is an actively managed ETF designed to see what others in fixed income may miss : uncovering opportunities across sectors so financial professionals can pursue reliable income for clients — even when the path forward looks uncertain. Explore HFSI. FINANCIAL PLANNING When Business-Owning Clients Should Fire Their Kids Let’s start with a little role play. Imagine you’re a highly successful business owner and you’ve appointed your son or daughter to a key management position. Despite your guidance and best intentions, however, they consistently fail to meet expectations. Would you have the resolve to fire them? The natural relationship dynamics that unite families can cause significant strife if allowed into the workplace, according to Alejandro Cárdenas Villa, an author and family business advisor. While it’s not always easy to do, separating familial relationships from business roles is critical for both family harmony and business stability, and avoiding difficult decisions is often a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, experienced advisors can do a lot, and it all starts with facilitating frank conversations. “Family relationships may be unconditional, but a role in the family business cannot be,” Cárdenas told Advisor Upside. “Most conflict that I’ve seen in family businesses has been caused by the older generation, let’s say the founder, because they haven’t had the courage to make tough decisions. It becomes a ticking time bomb for the next generation.” The Big Question Successful business owners often dream about bringing their kids into management once they’re old enough. It’s not an inherently bad idea, Cárdenas said, but it’s crucial to ask whether you’ll be willing to make the tough choice if they don’t measure up. “Probably the best piece of advice I can give to founders in this situat

Plus: Bulls step back | Tuesday, September 08, 2026 Axios Markets By Emily Peck and Matt Phillips · Sep 08, 2026 🌅 Welcome back! It's back to school here in the Northeast — a time to face cold realities. 👀 This morning, S&P 500 futures are down slightly, as oil prices are at six-week highs. Attacks on Saudi Arabian energy facilities over the weekend have investors on edge. Copper prices hit an all-time high this weekend on tariff anticipation — and supply concerns for a crucial data center input. 🗓️ Today, a look at something unreal and hard to face — the prospect of a deliberate default on U.S. government debt. Plus, retail investors are looking less bullish these days. And, a sobering chart for those of us in the information biz. Let's dive in. In 1,242 words, a 4.5-minute read. 1 big thing: One big, beautiful default? By Emily Peck Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios In a Virginia law school classroom, students are grappling with an event once considered unimaginable: a U.S. government debt default. Why it matters: This semester's class is indicative of a nervousness that has become more widespread about America's standing in the global financial system. Zoom in: The One Big Beautiful Default assignment in Mitu Gulati's class at the University of Virginia School of Law is a hypothetical memo signed by "the President," who is unnamed. "Ladies and Gentlemen: I am writing to you in your capacities as experts in the resolution of sovereign debt crises," it reads. Foreigners have stopped buying U.S. Treasury bonds, and the government is "being forced to offer higher and higher interest rates" to get people to buy them, the president writes. That makes investors "yippy" and drives rates up more. Rates are at 15%, the president says, adding that he needs this fixed. Zoom out: It's a scenario that has happened to much smaller nations. Argentina, for example, outright defaulted on its debt in 2001. What they're saying: In the class exercise, the president proposes a deliberate kind of default. He says he wants to stop making payments on bonds to noncitizens and wants to minimize the negative effects such a move would have. Students have until the end of the semester to come up with a plan. "I desperately hope that we don't have to worry about it, but I think it's really stupid not to prepare," Gulati says. The big picture: U.S. Treasury securities have long been considered the safest investments in the world — sometimes described as "risk free." A deliberate default or a political decision to punish certain holders of U.S. Treasurys "would destabilize the entire international financial system," says Lee Buchheit, a veteran sovereign debt lawyer who has worked with Gulati before and is familiar with the class assignment. State of play: The U.S. is now paying higher interest rates to entice investors to buy its Treasury notes and bonds — the rate on the 30-year bond is back to levels not seen since 2007. Friction point: There are signs, meanwhile, that investors — particularly foreign governments — are looking for alternatives to the U.S. The Netherlands shifted some of its gold from the U.S. Norway's sovereign wealth fund — the world's largest — is proposing to cut its exposure to government bonds, including U.S. Treasury securities. Foreign governments are holding a much smaller share of U.S. government debt, as Matt wrote recently . Yes, but: At the moment, borrowing costs are rising not just in the U.S., but also for most developed countries — all dealing with a mountain of debt. And there are some who argue that interest rates are now normalizing from the super-low levels that became the norm in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Flashback: Worries over a U.S. default have cropped up before around debt ceiling standoffs. "We live in a moment in which a U.S. administration has been willing to deploy punitive tariffs on other countries for reasons that have nothing to do with trade policy," says Buchheit, who advised the Greek government in its debt restructuring — the largest ever at the time. "The proponents of those policies might just be tempted to entertain the possibility of a targeted default on debt held by an offending country," he says. But only if it wouldn't impair the market for U.S. debt, invite retaliation and could really be targeted. The bottom line: "These are Himalayan ifs," he says. "I, for one, don't think this would be possible, but the OBBD exercise invites the students to indulge in what law professors like to call 'hypotheticals.'" "After all, bestselling books are written about the possibility, and the likely consequences, of thermonuclear annihilation." 2. Retail investors were less bullish in August By Jeffrey Cane Illustration: Gabriella Turrisi/Axios Retail investors were less eager buyers of stocks in August, taking advantage of gains early in the month to trim some of their positions and leading to a 3.9% decline in Charles Schwab's index of stock positions and trading activity, per data shared exclusively with Axios. Why it matters: That caution, seen during a month of rising Treasury yields and surging energy prices, may indicate a willingness to tap the brakes on this long-running bull market. What they're saying: Investors' hesitation is reflected in the growing trend of putting money into exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, instead of single stocks, says Joe Mazzola, head trading and derivatives strategist at Schwab. There's a "momentum shift toward diversified ETFs," he notes, with four ETFs among the top 10 net buys among Schwab clients. In addition, of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500, its investors were net buyers of only industrials, utilities and real estate — all typically defensive investments. Zoom in: Among single-stock names, Elon Musk's SpaceX was "hands down the favorite" among retail clients in August, Mazzola says. Other top net buys were: Micron, Nvidia, Intel and Alphabet. By the numbers: The Schwab Trading Activity Index, or STAX, declined to

Plus: Is your billfold big enough for Apple’s new foldable? September 8, 2026 PRESENTED BY UNITED STATES TUNGSTEN CORP. Good morning. Young workers the world over can’t catch a break. Chinese auto parts giant Changzhou Xingyu Automotive Lighting Systems apologized Monday for laying off 107 new employees weeks after hiring them straight out of university. The company, which makes headlamps for BMW, Toyota, Volkswagen and more, recruited 440 graduates from the class of 2026, a move it now calls “poor judgment” after a July revision in order forecasts led to restructuring. Under pressure from local authorities and furious social media users, Xingyu Automotive announced its general manager will forfeit a year’s worth of salary, its deputy general manager will lose six months’ pay, its HR director has been fired, and another HR official has been demoted. The laid-off young workers are receiving three months of job-seeker subsidies and any who don’t find a job will get six months of salary. As of Monday, 71 of the workers had already started in new positions, and 22 had job offers. MARKETS S&P 500 7,718.60 ▼ -0.38% DJI 53,414.25 ▼ -0.51% ORCL $158.78 ▲ +3.08% Stock data as of market close on September 4, 2026. MARKETS How Much Longer Can Blue-Chip Companies Keep Up High Performance? Photo via Lev Radin/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom If you’re an American corporate titan right now, life is basically an all-you-can-eat buffet where everyone else is paying for the napkins. In the second quarter, earnings per share for S&P 500 companies skyrocketed 53% from a year earlier and sales jumped almost 16%, according to LSEG data. Plenty of companies across industries, from Best Buy to Caterpillar to General Motors , have beaten earnings expectations and raised their guidance. Still, it’s probably no surprise that big tech is having a disproportionate say: Alphabet, Amazon, Micron Technology and NVIDIA were four of the top five contributors to earnings growth, according to FactSet . There are many factors at play, including tariff refunds, resilient consumer spending and elevated energy prices. But the biggest driver is artificial intelligence spending, which has moved far beyond just being a chip story. Hyperscalers are pouring money into data centers, power infrastructure, hardware and more, and capital expenditures for the largest tech companies are expected to top $1 trillion next year. Second Act Can the strong performances last? The estimated third-quarter year-over-year earnings growth rate for the S&P 500 is 28.5%, and achieving that would mark the index’s third straight quarter of earnings above 25%, per FactSet . For the fourth quarter, analysts are estimating earnings growth of 26.1%. But risks to those estimates are becoming clearer. For one, the market is moving from asking how much companies are spending on AI to when those investments are actually going to pay off. “The winners will not necessarily be every company funding the buildout,” said Tom Hainlin, national investment strategist at US Bank Asset Management. “They will be the businesses with pricing power, hard-to-replicate infrastructure and a clear path from spending to cash flow.” That’s not all: Persistent inflation could weigh on consumer demand and profit margins, while slower economic growth would weaken revenue, Hainlin said. “With expectations already elevated, even solid results could produce volatility if companies lower their guidance or investors question the durability of growth.” Then there’s the continued bond market rout. Higher bond yields increase borrowing and refinancing costs, and give investors a competitive alternative to stocks. Companies with highly leveraged balance sheets, large refinancing needs or interest-sensitive business models could see earnings pressure as financing costs rise, said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. “If the AI capex build requires an increasing level of debt financing, then higher rates could weigh on forward profitability and add volatility to the whole ecosystem,” he added (though that may be more of a 2027 or 2028 story). The Market’s Mismatch: A recent report from JPMorgan Wealth Management pointed out that while forward earnings expectations keep going up, stocks aren’t fully reflecting the trend. What could change that? Bond yields becoming less of a headwind and more certainty around how helpful AI will be for productivity long term. Written by Mallika Mitra PRESENTED BY UNITED STATES TUNGSTEN CORP. This Mineral Is Up 500%+ Photo via United States Tungsten Corp. If you’re not one of those rare few who keep their phone ringer on for all to hear, then you’re someone whose pocket is buzzing with notifications. Those vibrations? Tungsten . Tungsten is one of the densest materials on Earth and is used as the vibration weight inside every haptic motor. It’s also a critical mineral for aerospace, automotive, energy and defense, but the US is totally reliant on imports, putting these industries at risk. Enter United States Tungsten , a company reactivating America’s largest proven tungsten mine. Their goal? Reshore this industry-critical raw material. Today you can become a United States Tungsten shareholder and get up to 18% bonus shares . And with tungsten prices up 500%+ in the last year, now’s a great time to invest. * BIG TECH Foldable Phones Are Back, and They’re Bringing Bad News to Your Billfold Anyone who rocked a hot pink Motorola Razr in the 2000s knows folding phones are nothing new. If you didn’t live through the era of flip-phone flexing, however, it’s no wonder if you see their buzzy comeback as more debut than resurgence. Not only are they dominating headlines and marketing campaigns, but they also look different: This time around, they’re all screen and no button. The latest arrival on the foldable scene is Apple, which is finally putting a crease in its iconic iPhone for customers who want a bigger screen but are too ashamed to bring their iPad everywhere. Bloomber

No work was done in the making of this newsletter Byron Gilliam “When we reach the point when the world produces all the goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will, we must curtail our production of goods and turn our attention to the great problem of what to do with our new leisure.” — Julian Huxley, 1930 When jobs become hobbies Blacksmithing has always been a loud, hot, strenuous, and dangerous activity. Today, it’s also an expensive one. Where bashing metal used to be a profession, people now pay for the privilege of doing it. $325 for an intro to blacksmithing class in Brooklyn, NY, for example. Or $925 for a three-day “ adult summer camp .” Blacksmithing hasn’t really been a profession since about 1930, by which time, pretty much everything traditionally made by hand — nails, tools, samurai swords — was being made in factories. Horseshoes were the last holdout of commercial blacksmithing because they were so bespoke (every horse hoof is different). When horses were replaced by automobiles, blacksmiths lost that work, too. At that point, a blacksmith’s best chance for continued employment was perhaps Colonial Williamsburg , where they plied their trade in front of an audience — demonstrating how metal products were made in the days before factories made everything. It’s still a popular attraction, and not just for the blacksmiths. Colonial Williamsburg also has weaving, brickmaking, cordwaining (leather shoes), basketmaking, wheelwrighting (wagon wheels), coopering (barrels), and book binding — all the lost professions of the 19th century, performed for history-buff tourists. Being something of a history-buff tourist myself, I can’t help wondering: How long will it be before people want to watch programmers work, too? Because writing code — line by line — is quickly becoming as antiquated as binding your own books. Soon, crafting functions, loops, and if-then statements will be a lost art, practiced only by a small group of artisanal programmers. These last holdouts will find work demonstrating the ancient art of programming in a half-open space made to look like a dotcom-era startup — the main attraction of a historic district of Silicon Valley. (What to call it, though? Dotcom San Francisco? Colonial Cupertino?) There will be classes, too: learn to make a webpage in HTML like it’s the 2000s. Program “Hello World” in C like it’s the 1980s. Multiply two numbers with punchcards like it’s the 1970s. I suspect the classes will be a hit, because what else will we do when AI does everything for us? Today is a good day to think about it. In the United States, we’ve long since celebrated Labor Day by not working. But if AI becomes everything that OpenAI and Anthropic keep telling us it will be, we might soon do it the other way around. Labor Day will be the day we do old jobs — the way people used to do them — for fun. Blacksmithing, programming, accounting, and — for the truly adventurous — newsletter writing. It’ll be great. Just look at the photo above! Jobs and Woz were having a great time in a garage in the 1970s, working to build the kinds of machines futurists had long predicted would make work increasingly unnecessary. In 1930 — just as the last blacksmiths were being put out of work — Julian Huxley said that technological progress would inevitably usher in the two-day workweek. Thereafter, he predicted, our greatest problem would be what to do with the additional three days of free time. He was early with that. What we actually found to do for the rest of the week was more and different ways to work. Most full-time jobs still take up about 40 hours of our time, Monday to Friday. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Huxley was wrong, though. It might just mean that we are really good at inventing new kinds of work to do. But can we invent new forms of work faster than AI can learn to do them? If not, we’ll soon have to invent new forms of leisure — which will probably include old forms of work. In the meantime, though, Labor Day remains a day of not working. Enjoy the time off. — Byron Gilliam Brought to you by: Avalanche Summit NYC returns September 16–17, bringing together the institutions, enterprises, investors, and builders turning blockchain technology into real business outcomes. From tokenized markets and institutional finance to payments and consumer applications, the Summit will explore how production-ready infrastructure is enabling faster settlement, lower costs, and entirely new products and revenue streams. Use promo code BLOCKWORKS15 for 15% off! Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 Blockworks 133 W 19TH ST New York, New York 10011, United States